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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492895">before this ends up as another memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gildedlily/pseuds/gildedlily'>gildedlily</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SEVENTEEN (Band), fromis_9 (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Exes, F/F, F/M, Self-Discovery, the expectations of asian immigrant parents, wonwoo’s stupid repressed man pining tactics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:42:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,547</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492895</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gildedlily/pseuds/gildedlily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“To be fair,” Hayoung says, “it’s easy to notice something’s off when you’re also pretending.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeon Wonwoo/Song Hayoung, Lee Saerom/Song Hayoung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>before this ends up as another memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from “are you bored yet?” by wallows</p><p>thank you to hui for reading this over as well as listening to me ramble about these brain worms</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things Hayoung had planned on doing this Tuesday afternoon: finish her stat problem set, meet up with Gyuri to study for their upcoming bio test, and grab a bite to eat with Saerom.</p><p>Things Hayoung had not planned on doing this Tuesday afternoon: receive a call from her high school ex-boyfriend.</p><p>Hayoung almost doesn’t answer the phone when it rings, the shrill default ringtone interrupting the otherwise quiet dorm. Saerom had set her individual ringtone on Hayoung’s phone to the new Hoody song during a play rehearsal break, and no one else called her. But then she remembers that Gyuri and she had made plans to study together, so she picks up her phone, expecting to see Gyuri’s name for the caller ID.</p><p>Instead, the name Wonwoo Jeon is printed neatly on the screen. Hayoung thought that she had left her high school ex-boyfriend behind, back at home with her old dance recital photographs and Korean school textbooks. The last time they talked (well over a year ago), he had sent her pictures of the kittens at an animal shelter.</p><p>Hayoung stares at her phone, which continues to interrupt the otherwise quiet dorm. She could let it ring until voicemail. She has no obligation to Wonwoo now. What more is there to say? Thank you for taking me to prom, thank you for attending my chorus concerts, thank you for being so madly in love with your best friend the entire time that we dated—</p><p>She picks up the phone.</p><p>“Hello?” she says.</p><p>“Hi.” Wonwoo’s voice is as deep as she remembers, but sounds more uncertain than she’s used to.</p><p>“Wonwoo,” she says simply.</p><p>“We said that we would still keep in touch, didn’t we?”</p><p>They <em>had</em> said that, but it was swept away with the rest of their meaningless break up pleasantries. “I hope we can still be friends,” Hayoung had said, following the script of when a break up doesn’t end in flames, and Wonwoo had nodded, accepting the hollow words.</p><p>“We did,” she says quietly. “How are things at Columbia? You’re majoring in English lit, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, like he’s surprised that she still remembers. “Things are… things are good.”</p><p>“Great.”</p><p>They sit in silence. Before Hayoung had realized that Wonwoo’s quietness was due to him choosing which words to say and not inattention, she would ramble to fill the silence. The first time she attended one of his debate rounds, she noticed how his face was completely blank during his opponent’s speech, like he was zoned out. When it was his turn to speak, he had smiled and then proceeded to eviscerate his opponent.</p><p>She had wondered if Wonwoo did that with her too—if he catalogued a list of her flaws while she spoke.</p><p>“Do you want to talk about anything,” Hayoung asks at the same time Wonwoo asks, “How do I be brave?”</p><p>Their voices clash, dissonant, like an off-key chord.</p><p>“You first,” she says.</p><p>There’s a pause as Wonwoo finds the words, deliberate in his actions like always.</p><p>“How do I be brave?” he finally asks.</p><p>Hayoung can picture him in his Columbia dorm, pushing his glasses up and fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater.</p><p>There really is only one reason why Wonwoo would call his ex whom he hasn’t spoken to in over a year. Leading with a vague question about bravery just confirms Hayoung’s suspicions. She glances at her stat problem set, accepting that she won’t finish it today, and cycles through several responses in her mind before settling on, “Are we talking about it now?”</p><p>For all their easy conversations, they left so much unsaid.</p><p>Wonwoo laughs, short and cutting. “Yeah, I guess. I feel so stupid,” he says. “I never said shit in high school and you still figured it out.”</p><p>“To be fair,” Hayoung says, “it’s easy to notice something’s off when you’re also pretending.”</p><p>“True,” he says, sighing, probably leaning back in his chair like he did when he was stumped with a particularly tricky homework problem. “Dating you was never this difficult.”</p><p>“That’s because there weren’t any consequences,” Hayoung says. “There weren’t any real stakes when we broke up.” No, the stakes in their relationship would’ve started if they had remained together. Hayoung’s blood chills when she thinks of the alternate future where she stayed with Wonwoo and they ended up as married high school sweethearts.</p><p>“We never actually talked to each other,” she says. “Otherwise, I would’ve said something about your hopeless pining sooner.”</p><p>“Hopeless pining, huh,” Wonwoo repeats, amused.</p><p>“Am I wrong?” Hayoung asks.</p><p>“You’re not,” he admits. “It’s just that I’ve spent so much of my life looking at him that I just got used to it.”</p><p>And that was Wonwoo Jeon, coward through and through. Capable of delivering scathing debate rebuttals but unable to voice his true feelings.</p><p>“It’s not going to be the end of the world if Soonyoung rejects you,” Hayoung says, finally mentioning the person that they both know Wonwoo is referring to.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The first time Hayoung met Wonwoo was at Korean school. She was in fourth grade and had just moved from California to New Jersey, trading her friends and In-N-Out burgers for strangers and whatever a Wawa hoagie was. When she was placed in the fifth grade Korean class, she had accepted her solitary fate. Back then, the gap between being a fourth grader and a fifth grader seemed insurmountable.</p><p>Wonwoo was in the same class as her. During the ten minute break between classes, he had gotten out his DS and started playing Pokemon as the other students filtered out into the hallway.</p><p>Hayoung had frozen, stuck between braving the hallways where kids were running around playing tag and trying to find a quiet corner to eat her puffed rice snack, or staying within the safety of the classroom. She glanced over at Wonwoo and stood up, making her choice.</p><p>“Hi,” she said, walking over to Wonwoo’s desk and grinning, her smile riddled with missing teeth. “Are you playing Pokemon?”</p><p>Wonwoo looked up, startled, and then nodded.</p><p>And so it had begun.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Later, when they started dating, the news had spread around the Korean school KakaoTalk groups and all the ajummas had congratulated her on dating such a handsome boy. Sooyoung, her fellow dance teacher, had brought it up during a water break, flopping down on the gym floor as the kids ran outside to the water fountains. Hayoung was thinking about her friends, who were spending their Saturday planning spirit week outfits instead of teaching first graders traditional dance, when Sooyoung spoke up.</p><p>“You and Wonwoo, really?”</p><p>Hayoung nodded, thinking back to the feeling of his hands in hers when he asked her out.</p><p>“Truly the perfect Korean school couple,” Sooyoung said, “The cute dance teacher and the teaching assistant that all the moms fawn over.” She rolled her eyes at the last part.</p><p>Hayoung couldn’t even deny it. Her own mom had cooed over “that polite Jeon boy and his great manners” on multiple occasions.</p><p>“My mom sure would kill to have Wonwoo as a son-in-law.” Sooyoung snickered, rolling over so that she was now face-to-face with Hayoung. “As soon as she kills me for dating.”</p><p>Hayoung flushed at the mention of son-in-law. “Stop exaggerating,” she said. “What are the chances that I’ll end up with him?”</p><p>Sooyoung raised an eyebrow. “You mean your love life doesn’t consist of a dating ban until college, then a rush to date and marry the first Korean boy you see, and then—wait for it—you have two kids and a house in the suburbs?”</p><p>“Owning property?” Hayoung weakly joked. “As if.” She didn’t refute the rest of Sooyoung’s statement, well aware of her parents talking about hypothetical grandchildren whom they could spoil.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Later that afternoon when Korean school ended, Wonwoo had been waiting in the lobby to pick his sister up after his debate tournament and offered Hayoung a ride home. They crowded into his car, Hayoung’s bookbag and guitar case in the backseat next to a disgruntled Heejin, who had immediately gone on her phone, while Hayoung sat in the passenger seat.</p><p>“Hello, Wonwoo, how are you. Good to see you too, Heejin,” he said dryly, adjusting the mirrors, smiling shyly when Hayoung’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror.</p><p>“How was the tournament,” Heejin said in a monotone voice, not looking up from her phone. “Are you winning, son. Did Soonyoung get lost trying to find a water fountain again.”</p><p>Hayoung elected to ignore how Wonwoo’s eyes had softened at the mention of Soonyoung.</p><p>You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he doesn’t love you.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Despite dating him for three years, Hayoung knew no more about Wonwoo except that he was one <em>dense</em> motherfucker when it came to dealing with his emotions and he pined like a Byronic hero.</p><p>He rarely talked about his fears and worries with her, choosing instead to say that he had a late night revising apps and laughing about how Soonyoung hadn’t even started writing essays yet, leaving Hayoung to sift through the layers of subtext. Wonwoo was either stressed about apps and great at acting or actually unbothered, and Hayoung hated that she couldn’t confidently pinpoint the truth.</p><p>She was busy struggling through junior year while he was planning for his future. In her mind, the most important thing was the chem test she had tomorrow, while he was trying to get into college.</p><p>They didn’t mention the upcoming crossroads in their relationship though. Hayoung kept stopping by the history room where Wonwoo and his friends played D&amp;D during lunch, and Wonwoo kept visiting the choir room to say goodbye to her before her after-school practice started, and neither of them acknowledged that their time might be limited.</p><p>It was easy. It was comfortable. It was the stillness of the waves while a storm brewed in the distance.</p><p>When he kissed her, she thought, <em>Is this it? Could I do this for the rest of my life?</em></p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>They broke up during her first year of college.</p><p>Wonwoo had sent her a picture of kittens at an animal shelter along with an innocuous message:</p><p>
  <em>I don’t know about ten cats, but what are your thoughts on one?</em>
</p><p>The happiness Hayoung had felt from seeing the kittens was instantly replaced by ice cold dread when she read his message. When she imagined sharing an apartment with Wonwoo in the future and the two of them taking care of a cat together, all she felt was apprehension, not contentment, not a sense of <em>this is what it’s supposed to be</em>.</p><p>And so she had broken up with him.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Eight months later, Hayoung kissed Saerom Lee at a cast party after the spring production of <em>Hamlet</em>, and that is when everything clicked.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>“You’ve spent so long loving him,” Hayoung says.</p><p>“It was never fair for you,” Wonwoo replies.</p><p>“No, it wasn’t,” Hayoung says, “but I agreed to it.” She gazes at the photo strips of her and Saerom—the two of them decked out in feathered boas and plastic hats—that she had taped to the wall. Saerom’s eyes had lit up when she saw the photo booth at Spring Fling and she had dragged Hayoung along. (The photo strip of her and Wonwoo’s carnival date was at home, stored in a box with winter concert programs and other high school memorabilia).</p><p>“You agreed to date me, not to be a rebound,” he says.</p><p>“Is it even a rebound if the relationship never even happened?” Hayoung asks.</p><p>Wonwoo laughs sharply. “Touché.” He pauses. “What are the neighborhood ajummas going to say? I swear Auntie Yoo was more sad about our break up than I was.”</p><p>“Really? I thought she tried to set you up with her daughter after she found out you were single again,” Hayoung says.</p><p>“Okay fine, she was more sad than I was for five seconds, and then she started telling me about Jeongyeon,” Wonwoo admits.</p><p>Hayoung snickers. “Sounds about right. Doesn’t that scare you though,” she asks, “that we could’ve ended up together? Because I’ll be honest, it scared the shit out of me.”</p><p>Wonwoo hums. “Things were easy between us though. I think I could’ve learned to love you.”</p><p>She sighs. “Wonwoo, you can’t keep repressing your feelings because it hurts less.”</p><p>“Wanna bet?” he asks.</p><p>“You’re seriously fine with a whole lifetime of you pining over Soonyoung?” As soon as she says the words, she knows that he is. Wonwoo is nothing but stubborn, nothing but sacrificial. “It’s okay to be selfish sometimes,” she says. “And if you think you could’ve learned to love me, then I’m sure Soonyoung can learn to love you, even if his feelings don’t quite match yours yet.”</p><p>Wonwoo laughs, bitter. “God, I wish I could be brave. But every time I even think about confessing, I just feel like it would be rude to subject him to my—” He pauses, presumably to wave a hand around, “stupid pining. And then I start thinking about how my parents are expecting grandchildren, and it’s just so much simpler to not say anything.”</p><p>Hayoung’s heart aches. She had spent her fair share of sleepless nights agonizing over whether it would be fair for her to date Saerom, alternating between hating herself for being selfish and a bad daughter and hating herself for complicating such an easy decision.</p><p>“It’s not like you’re choosing between Soonyoung and your parents,” Hayoung says. “They’re not mutually exclusive.</p><p>“I mean, would you be happy if we were still dating? And somewhere, along the line in the future, we got married and had two kids and three cats?” Her stomach churns at the thought of it. “Sure, it would be <em>easy</em> and <em>convenient</em>, but that sounds more like choosing to eat instant ramen for lunch than spending the rest of your life with someone.” Hayoung takes a deep breath.</p><p>“I’m seeing someone right now,” she says, “and she’s really sweet. And when I’m with her, everything falls into place, you know?</p><p>“And obviously it’s up to you in the end, but give yourself a chance, please.”</p><p>“You’ve always been the brave one, Hayoung,” Wonwoo says.</p><p>“That’s what you called me for. What can I say,” Hayoung says, shrugging, “I’m good at giving advice to friends.”</p><p>There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Wonwoo speaks again. “Thank you, really. I hope you and your girlfriend are well.”</p><p>She laughs, feeling lighter. “Yeah, you should come visit me sometime. Bring Soonyoung along too.”</p><p><br/>
</p><p>——</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Hayoung’s in Saerom’s dorm, sprawled out on her bed and scrolling aimlessly through Instagram as Saerom prepares a presentation for one of her classes. Her feed is filled with the usual—influencers, dance studio choreographies, and her friends enjoying their college experiences—when she sees something that makes her almost fall off the bed.</p><p>The resulting noise makes Saerom turn around in her chair. “What’s up?” she asks.</p><p>In response, Hayoung excitedly shoves her phone screen in Saerom’s face.</p><p>Soonyoung’s newest Instagram post is a picture of him with a tiger plush in his arms and beaming like the sun, Wonwoo right next to him.</p><p>Caption: <em>he drove down to see me, can u believe it</em> 🐯 💕</p><p><br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>“you’re in a car with a beautiful boy” is from the poem <a href="http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/17/you-are-jeff-crush-by-richard-siken/">“you are jeff”</a> by richard siken<br/>heejin and sooyoung are from loona<br/>jeongyeon is from twice<br/>irrelevant, but hayoung and saerom go to yale (please watch the feel good mv ❤️ )</p></blockquote></div></div>
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